There’s a new Badge of Silver in town that is starting to shine in 2012, and this one may be on his way to the
$1 million Louisiana Derby at Fair Grounds
April 1.

That
annual Grade II centerpiece of the New Orleans meeting will be run for
the 99th time on the current session’s Closing Day, and this colt
is a homebred son of 2005’s New Orleans Handicap winner Badge of Silver which goes by the initially awkward-sounding name of
Tetradrachm.

Trained by
Paul McGee, Tetradrachm broke his maiden last Friday night during Fair Grounds’ initial
StarlightRacing program this season. The homebred owned by
Mrs. Jerry Amerman won by a
neck when going 1 1/16-miles over the main track, and although the
newly-turned sophomore paid a $29 win mutuel, his victory came as no
surprise to his conditioner.

“He’s
been a nice horse for me since I got him and I really expected him to
run well the other night,” said McGee during training hours Sunday
morning. “He really had a lot of trouble in his first three races (as a
2-year-old in
Kentucky).
The comments only show him racing wide, but he had a lot more trouble
than wide trips. At least I thought he did. I thought his races up there
were a lot better than they showed on
paper.”

The 2012 Louisiana Derby trail, it should be noted, begins with Fair Grounds’
Grade III Lecomte Stakes onRoad to the Derby Kickoff Day Presented by Hotel Monteleone Jan. 21 and continues with the
Grade IIRisen Star Stakes on Louisiana Derby Preview Day Presented by Lamarque Ford Feb. 25.

“Right
now, we’re hopeful he’s going to be the kind of horse that will compete
at that level for us,” said McGee. “I was very pleased with the
way he ran the other night.”

Incidentally,
although the word “tetradrachm” doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue,
the name for a son of Badge of Silver is actually quite apropos,
because the tetradrachm was an ancient Greek silver coin that was in
wide circulation from 510 to 38 B.C. and its use as a currency spread
with the armies of Alexander the Great.